Davidson County Election Commission Chair Jim DeLanis filed suit against Metro Nashville Government in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on Wednesday.
DeLanis has also filed suit against his former employer, the law firm Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz.
In addition to Metro Government and Baker Donelson, Councilman Bob Mendes has been named in the suit both individually and in his capacity as a member of Metro Council.
DeLanis claimed that his former employer fired him after decades at the firm because of pressure from firm clients and members of Metro Government. DeLanis made significant efforts through the county election commission to push an anti-tax ballot referendum to a countywide vote despite several legal rulings saying the referendum was illegal.
DeLanis is asking for, an “order permanently enjoining Metro, its officials, officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert or participation with it, including Mendes and Baker Donelson, from seeking to illegally or unlawfully coerce or intimidate DeLanis in his capacity as a state official serving on the Commission.”
He is also asking for compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million, an award of punitive damages to be determined at trial, and for his legal fees to be recovered.
The civil suit makes four main claims and includes allegations that may have criminal implications.
The first said:
Metro acting through its public officials and Mendes had implemented the Metro Anti-Referendum Policy to oppose the efforts to place the Tax Referendum on the ballot which policy included efforts by Metro to oppose and discourage the Commission and its Commissioners, who were state officials, from voting to appeal the June 21, 2021 trial court ruling and which policy also included proposed ballot issues written by Mendes and enacted by the Metro Council that would forever prohibit public referendum on certain tax issues unless authorized by state law.
The second claim says Metro officials violated DeLanis’ First and Fourteenth Amendment constitutional rights and they include Mayor John Cooper and Councilman Bob Mendes:
Metro acting through public officials, who are presently unknown to DeLanis but who, on information and belief include Mayor John Cooper, and/or Mendes, violated DeLanis’ rights as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments, which are consistent with the public policy protections set up under Tennessee Code Annotated § 2-19-202, by attempting to intimidate or coerce him, by publicly threatening Commission members and/or by placing his private employment at risk, in order to cause him to vote against efforts to place the public referendum on the ballot or to take other action to increase the probability that the Commission would not vote to appeal the June 21, 2021 trial court decision.
The third claim alleges a conspiracy by Metro Government and Baker Donelson against DeLanis.
Defendants Metro, acting through its public officials, Baker Donelson and, on information and belief, Mendes, acted in an unlawful conspiracy and/or in cooperation with each other to injure DeLanis by infringing upon his civil rights as established and protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The fourth says DeLanis’ former employer violated his rights while engaging in conduct as a “state actor.
Baker Donelson engaged in its conduct, as alleged herein, directed toward DeLanis in circumstances that render it a state actor under the “state compulsion test” which exists when a government actor, such as Metro and/or Mendes, significantly encouraged or somehow coerced the private party, either overtly or covertly, to take a particular action so that the choice of action is really that of the state. Finally, the nexus test requires a sufficiently close relationship between the state and the private actor so that the action taken may be attributed to the state.
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Aaron Gulbransen is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]. Follow Aaron on GETTR, Twitter, Truth Social, and Parler.
